


i know i don't show it (but i'm glad you came)

by hellstrider



Series: Ice & Iron [1]
Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Werewolves, Blood, Blood and Injury, Boys tripping over their feelings, He WANTS, Hunter!Jon Snow, Hurt/Comfort, Lord help Jon Snow, M/M, Magical Tattoos, Pre-Relationship, Prequel, Werewolf!Tormund, of a sort, oof, really it's an excuse to describe tor's tats, soft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-26
Updated: 2019-06-26
Packaged: 2020-05-20 08:15:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19372783
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hellstrider/pseuds/hellstrider
Summary: Jon wakes to the sound of a body hitting the living room floor.





	i know i don't show it (but i'm glad you came)

**Author's Note:**

> henlo have this; it's set before the others in the series xoxo
> 
> title from different breeds by london grammar which is, just, the jonmund song

Jon wakes to the sound of a body hitting the living room floor. His heart launches into his mouth and he reaches immediately for the gun beneath his pillow, stinking of oil and wolfsbane even to his human nose.

 A stream of slurring curses morphs into a low, warbling whine and Jon creeps out of his bedroom, armed only with the gun and wearing only his boxer-briefs to find a huge, horribly familiar form slumped over on his shitty flat’s floor.

There’s blood on the windowsill and streaking across the wood, and Jon’s stomach plummets to his feet when a head of red hair lifts and gold eyes cut him to the quick.

“ _Tor_ ,” he breathes, and it comes out as a palpable force.

Jon rushes forwards, shoving his gun aside in favor of grasping at Tormund’s huge, heaving shoulders. Horror unfurls deep in his gut at the sight of him; his eyes are suspended between human and wolf, sclera so bloodshot it might as well be black. There’s a gash over his bottom lip that won’t heal – _why isn’t he healing, he always heals –_ and he’s damp with a cold sweat that turns his sunlit skin grey.

Wolfsbane poisoning. He’s seen it enough times but seeing it like this – seeing it on _him..._. Jon thinks he might chew through his own heart as he cups Tormund’s face – he’s not burning up, but it’s a very near thing.

“Jon.”

It’s gravel-rough. Jon looks down to where Tormund grasps at his stomach, clawed hand gone red with tacky blood, and all he tastes is the bitter sting of absolute panic followed quickly by an anger that threatens to have him growing his own set of fangs. Whoever did this, Jon thinks darkly, won’t make it to next fucking week.

“Come on.”

Jon hooks an arm under one of the wolf’s and Tormund breathes hard and quick through his nose as he helps heave him up off the floor. It’s really only when Jon is either being hoisted over his shoulder like a sack of feathers or bearing the brunt of his weight that he remembers just how _big_ Tormund actually is.

He’s all muscle and sheer bulk, an unstoppable force of the wild wearing human skin. Jon wraps an arm around his waist and together they cross his tiny flat and push into the equally tiny bathroom. Tormund bites back a snarl as he slumps back against the wall, and Jon turns on the lights before squeezing between the wolf and the low counter.

“Don’t rip my throat out,” Jon says, even though he knows he would never – it’s mostly to make Tormund smile, which it does, albeit weakly, but it dies too quickly on his face. Jon swallows hard and reaches for the hem of his tank top, soaked through with sweat and blood.

Tormund’s stomach is streaked with crimson. Try as he might not to, Jon still lets out a hissing breath when he pulls the tank top away from the stab wound in his gut, just under and to the left of a pierced nipple.

“Jesus _fucking_ Christ,” he whispers. “This – Tor, you should be on the fucking ground.”

The veins around the festering wound are black as pitch. He can smell the wolfsbane, pure and heavy and _hateful._ Thick blood oozes from the wound, blood that's going indigo to black as it burns in the clutch of the ‘bane.

“There’s nothing to do but wait,” Tormund growls low as Jon moves to wet a towel.

“I’m still gonna fucking clean it, Tor, Christ.”

“It’ll keep making a mess, little crow.”

“Then I’ll keep fucking cleaning it up!” Jon bites out, and Tormund arches a brow. His throat works around a swallow and Jon breathes in as evenly as he can, wringing out the towel and bracing on the counter for a heartbeat.

“Let’s get you sat down,” Jon murmurs then, almost apologetic, and Tormund’s knuckles pass over his cheek. He catches the wolf’s hand and guides him to the toilet, holds on for longer than he should as Tormund sits, face curled in a pained snarl.

Jon kneels down between the wolf’s knees and tries _desperately_ to hold back a wave of heat. His fear far outpaces his rampant attraction – _attraction, Jon Snow? You’re a shit liar, especially to yourself –_ so he lets the fear swallow it up and starts to wipe the blood away from his skin in methodical, careful sweeps of the towel.

“What the fuck happened, Tor?”

“They got lucky.”

“ _Who_ got lucky?”

Jon looks up as one of Tormund’s claws traces the line of his jaw.

“Bolton’s Flayers,” the wolf admits gruffly. “They killed an alpha and took her wolves. I went to take them back.”

“Why didn’t you – “ Jon grits his teeth. “You can always ask me to help, you know that.”

“I know, sweet thing.”

The name _burns._ Jon halts for a moment, breath trapped in his throat. He wants Tormund to say it again, even now, bleeding out as he is.  

“Don’t you worry, Jon Snow.” Tormund grins, and it’s sharp and _deadly_. “I still won.”

“You’re gonna fucking _kill_ me with this shit.”

“Never.” Tormund’s voice is thick. “I’d never hurt you.”

Jon’s throat goes tacky. It’s not what he meant, but the wolf took it that way. “Just a figure of speech, Tor. I know that.”

“Jon.”

Fingers light under his chin. Jon looks up, heart fluttering fast as a hummingbird, to find Tormund gazing down at him with a softness behind his golden eyes. It makes him feel like he’s been broken open; it makes him feel like he could bite through steel.

“I know,” Jon murmurs then, putting intent to it this time. “I know you’d never hurt me.”

He slides his hand over Tormund’s wrist, feeling his flickering pulse. This seems to settle the wolf, and Jon’s chest fills with incredible warmth as Tormund grows lax, massive, tattooed shoulders dropping.

He’s only ever been to Jon’s flat a handful of times, but to see the wolf so at home, so comfortable here in a strange space – _not just that. When he was at the brink he came to you, Jon Snow. He came to you, and you alone. What do you think that means?_

Jon swallows hard. He rises to rinse the cloth out, wringing it out a few times before he moves back to the wolf. Tormund opens one golden eye and Jon shakes his head faintly, angry with himself that all he can muster is a frustrated fondness.

He should be furious with his wolf for this, should be furious he ever went hurdling headlong into a battle with the Flayers, but he can’t. All he can feel is sheer relief that he won – and relief that it was him Tormund came to right after.

“Lift your arms for a second. This shirt is foul.”

Jon drops the blood-soaked tank into the bath and tries not to drink in the firm muscle of the wolf’s chest overmuch. The gothic lettering over his collarbone calls to him, spelling out GIANTSBANE in swirling letters, and Jon carefully starts cleaning the blood from around the wound as he traps a myriad of questions behind his teeth.

He’s never been brave enough to ask about the tattoos the wolf wears, though he knows they each hold more meaning than he could fathom. He also knows they hold a deep magic, can taste it sometimes when Tormund is close or when he lets the wolf overtake him. It practically sings on full moon runs, calls to Jon and leads him to wherever the alpha ends up, every single time.

Jon can smell it now, a smell like ozone after a lightning strike.

“You think so fucking loudly, you know that?” Tormund nudges his chin with a curled finger. “Spit it out, little crow.”

He grunts when Jon edges too close to the wound and his face curls with pain, his teeth grinding as fang spills over his lips.

“What does it mean?” Jon asks, if only to distract him. He can’t imagine the pain he’s trying to hold back. “ _Giantsbane_. I’ve known you over a year and I never fucking asked.”

The wolf huffs, a whine curling underneath that pulls at Jon’s heartstrings.

“Put my teeth through a giant is what it means,” he grunts. “His woman thought I was her pup, fed me at her breast. It’s how I got so fucking strong, little crow.”

Jon can’t stop the smile that pulls at his lips. “You’re so full of shit.”

Another soft laugh. It sounds more exhausted than he’s ever seen the alpha, and it makes Jon want to bundle him up and not let him leave.

“Maybe. But I did kill a giant.”

"Mhm.” Jon looks up to meet those golden eyes. “What about that one. The one on your throat. It – _buzzes_ , sometimes.”

Tormund slides a hand over the lines etched down the side of his neck. “ _Ogham,”_ he says. “Says wild thing. Keeps my wolf strong. Keeps his teeth sharp and claws like steel.”

His hand drops to his thigh and Jon chews his cheek. He carefully turns it over, scanning the runes on his knuckles and the lined circle on the veiny back. As he runs a thumb over Tormund’s hand, the wolf burrs low, a sound that shoots right down his spine.

“Who put magic in them?” he asks. “I thought you didn’t trust witches.”

“Good thing it wasn’t a witch.”

Jon looks up sharply; Tormund’s hand turns under his own, and the wolf curls his fingers between his own.

“It was a druid, sweet thing.” The wolf gives him a jaunty half-grin. “Waited three days and three nights in a swamp for her.”

As Tormund fiddles idly with his hand, Jon sets the cloth aside and reaches for his other, bringing it over his strong thigh. More runes – each knuckle has one, four and four to make eight. He has scars on the back of his right hand instead of a tattoo and starting at his wrist are inked chains, wrapping all the way up his arm to the bear skull on the meat of his shoulder.

Swirls of peacock blue weave through the chains and become a three-pronged spiral under the maw of the bear, above the chains. On the inside of his forearm is a sword with its blade dipped in red.

 Across his left shoulder is a cluster of five fat red roses, the green ivy tumbling from them coated in thorns. From the vines come ghostly shapes of seven stags, running down into a deep green silhouette of a forest that cuffs his wrist and goes to his elbow. The stags look like they might move if he stares at them for long enough, and Jon wouldn’t be shocked if they did.

Jon has long admired his tattoos, all done by a hand far more talented than anything he could ever afford. Tormund is a patchwork of stories, of magic and the wild. Jon wants to hear every tale, wants to be the one that gets to keep them. He looks down to the wolf’s hands and swallows thickly.

“ _Algiz._ Protection,” Tormund grumbles low as Jon’s thumb passes over a three-pronged rune on his left forefinger. Jon glances up and moves his thumb to the next. “ _Thurisaz._ Rune of giants.”

“I’m sensing a theme.”

“At least it isn’t a fucking wolf. _Ansuz._ Wisdom.”

“Mm.” Jon looks back down. Tormund’s hands are huge, big enough to cover his own entirely. They’re thick and slender all at once, strong enough to break, but ever gentle when they land on him. “This one?”

“ _Eihwaz._ Survival. I like that one. I’d put that one and _algiz_ all over you, Jon Snow, but something tells me you were born with them on your bones.”

“Don’t need runes when you have a wolf,” Jon says, arching a brow, and Tormund’s laugh is more of a growl. When he looks at Jon, there's a softness there that he thinks fought hard to show through the pain.

“Aye, there is that.”

Jon thumbs over the rest, learns their names, their power; _Gebo_ , for the pack. _Othila_ , for the highlands his wolves run and chase and hunt over. _Dagaz,_ for the crossroads of life. _Fehu_ , for abundance. Each rune hums with magic, soft and subtle, yet when Jon focuses enough he can feel it down to his core.

 “And this? The circle?”

“A  _Vegvisir.”_ Tormund’s gaze is piercing, ever more so with the gold burning through it. “To guide me home.”

It feels heavier than it should be. Jon doesn’t lower his gaze, though he thinks he probably should. The alpha radiates raw strength as the wolfsbane burns through his blood, and Jon is addicted to it, addicted to the way it washes over him and seems to gather him close.

He sweeps his thumb over the sigil on his hand and then, with a numb tongue and fluttering heartbeat he knows Tormund can hear, Jon reaches for the towel and dabs gently at the blood that oozes from the dark wound.

“Why did you come here, Tor?”

“It was the only place that made sense,” and it's said like a confession, and Jon breathes out slow and even through his nose.

“More than the Northstar?"

“I’m too tired to lie, Jon Snow. Especially to you.”

“I know. I know that.”

Jon shuts his eyes. He’s agonized over this _thing_ between them so many times, spent too many nights in some shitty pub pouring over a pint going warm. The crux is how complicated it is, how complicated Jon knows he’s making it. It’s never been simple when it came to the wolf, never been an attraction Jon could shove away and forget about.

There’s a livewire between their souls, one that bloomed from blood spilled for the other and a trust laid carefully, brick by brick, until it became a fortress. Tormund became an impossible constant, became the true north Jon always turned to, and he still doesn’t know how. But he doesn’t think he can let it go. Not anymore.

“Why does it always seem like we only talk about important shit when we’re like this?” Jon asks. “It’s always like this.”

Tormund’s hand comes over his jaw, thumb sweeping under his lip, and he’s grown used to the way the wolves touch each other but he doesn’t see Tormund touch any of the others like this.

“We’re fools, Jon,” he says hoarsely. “Our courage only comes when we’re hurting.”

Briefly, Jon wonders if that would be the way they loved one another. If it would only come on the heels of battle, when they were desperate and aching and afraid. Jon swallows hard, swallows down the ever-present desire to kiss him even though he’s got blood on his mouth and leans away.

 _Do you remember the night I almost did?_ He wants to ask; _do you remember the night I could’ve become yours?_

Jon does. Remembers it in vivid detail even though he thinks he shouldn’t – the club, dark and gritty, reeking of sex and booze and darker magic. Tormund, showing up to drag him home before some incubi could make a meal of him.

He’d been belligerent and drunk and _hated_ him but wanted him more than he could even put to words. The wolf had used his alpha eyes on him that night, pushed him against a wall and Jon – Jon had almost been brave enough.

But he was always moving away. It was always like this. Tormund would touch him, and Jon would always turn away, because at his core Jon knew he deserved – he deserved more. Even though he wanted him like he wanted the air in his lungs and the sun against his skin, Jon knew he deserved better. Deserved a strong mate, one that didn’t have hunter blood in his veins and a gun loaded with wolfsbane bullets that he kept under his pillow.

_And yet he’ll always come running. Right to you, and your wolfsbane heart._

They were fools, Jon thinks as he reaches out to trace Tormund’s eyebrow with a thumb. The wolf turns his head to nose into his palm and Jon’s chest turns to mush, his stomach swooping and fool heart aching.

“You need rest,” he says quietly, and the moment breaks. “Let me get the med kit. I know it’ll heal on its own once the ‘bane is gone but let me at least patch it up.”

“How well you tend to me, little crow.”

And he’s looking at him like he’s something precious, like he’s the moon become flesh, and Jon just doesn’t know what to do with it.

“Someone fucking has to,” he says, and gently nudges his face away.

Once he’s bandaged the oozing wound with gauze pads and wrapped it, Jon washes his hands and leaves the blood on the floor for tomorrow. Tormund is able to stand on his own, though he braces a hand against the wall for support, and Jon keeps close as he leads the way out of the bathroom. He shuts the window and locks it, peering out to the empty street.

“You take the bed,” Jon orders, turning back to the wolf. “I’ll be on the couch. Yell if you need me.”  
           

Tormund gives him a look. “ _I’ll_ be on the couch.”

“Tor.”

“ _Jon_.” He huffs. “I’m not bleeding all over your bed. I – the wolf won’t let me. _I_ won’t let me. Besides, if anyone comes in, I’ll be waiting.”

Jon arches a bewildered brow. “Who are you expecting?”

“I’m not, but that’s how they get you, little crow.”

“That’s spectacularly paranoid.”

“And yet, here I still am.”

“You’re still here because you’re too damn stubborn to die.”

Tormund grins, all teeth, and Jon runs a hand over his face. “Fine. Take the damn sofa. Let me get some blankets, at least.”

When he returns with an armful of soft blanket, Tormund is laid out across the sofa, one arm over his eyes. He’s half gone already, and Jon shakes his head as he unfurls the blanket and tosses it over his wolf – and that’s the thing, isn’t it? Try as he might, his heart and soul both say that Tormund is his, and he’s getting to the point where he just can’t fight it anymore.

The wild thing in him, marked with iron and blood and fire, doesn’t want him to fight it. The thing that has green eyes and longs for the deep dark forest wants him to run with the wolves for as long as he can, and Jon – Jon dreams of it now, almost every night.

He runs a hand over the plume of Tormund’s hair, then bends and against his better judgement, presses a lingering kiss to his brow. The wolf’s chest rumbles with a satisfied burr, and Jon sinks slowly into the old armchair nearby, unable to take his eyes away from the wild thing that ran to him out of the dark.

Jon curls up in the chair and rests his head against the high, cushioned arm. He watches Tormund’s chest rise and fall under the moonlight and wonders if he could ever be worthy of the heart beneath it.

**Author's Note:**

> nobody:  
> jon: it's just so complicated i can't


End file.
